Seattle Public Utilities

Apply for a Sewer Submeter

The Sewer Submeter Program was instituted to make allowances for commercial business customers who use water that doesn’t enter the sanitary sewer. Water used for irrigation, delivery of water to ships, and water used in manufactured goods or products are all examples of situations where a submeter may be installed.

Installation and Maintenance

Customers are responsible for the purchase, installation, maintenance and accuracy of their own sewer submeters, equipment and appurtenances.

To receive the sewer deduction from your account, customers must install and maintain submeters that are authorized by Seattle Public Utilities.

Types of Authorized Submeters

Most customers will only be authorized to install deduct meters to eliminate sewer charges for water that doesn’t enter the sanitary sewer system. Example: irrigation, water used in products and makeup feed water for cooling tower evaporation. When receiving a deduction on a cooling tower or other such equipment where there is discharge to the sewer, a charge meter is required on those drain lines.

In rare cases where installing a deduct meter isn’t feasible, a charge meter may be authorized to capture actual effluent discharged from the property.

Customers with a dewatering permit are required to have a charge meter installed to capture actual effluent discharged from the property.

All submeters must register in cubic feet, accurately capture all flow ranges, and remotely transmit meter reads to the city right-of-way using Encoded Receiver Transmitter (ERT) technology.

There are several different ERT styles. A 100W E+ module should work with most installations. If you would like to purchase a module other than a 100W E+, you must get advanced approval from SPU.

Most installations will require the ERT to be ordered in “hard to read” mode from the supplier.